Business disagreements caused a bitter family rift in Brennan family

This story was published in the Oct. 7, 2007, edition of The Times-Picayune.

Few family feuds since the Montaguts and the Capulets have gained as much notoriety as the one that split the Brennan family in the early 1970s.

Commander's Palace matriarch Ella Brennan bristles a bit at the mention of it.

"That was history, " she says. "We have all let it pass. I don't know why other people won't."

On one side were the sons of Ella's deceased brother Owen -- Pip, Jimmy and Ted -- and his wife, Maude. On the other side were the remaining Brennan siblings -- Adelaide, John, Ella, Dick and Dottie.

The issues between them are still somewhat clouded, thanks to complex business dealings and family discretion. But the irritant seems to have been a disagreement on future development -- whether to expand the company enough to make room for new family members interested in joining the group -- as well as the kind of generational problems that frequently beset family businesses.

The Royal Street contingent, according to a 1985 article in The Times-Picayune, felt that the original Brennan's, cornerstone of the operation, was being neglected in order to make way for new growth.

Story by

Elizabeth Mullener

The Times-Picayune

"What caused the rift, " Ella Brennan says, "was that they owned the majority of stock, 52 percent, and they wanted us to stay at Brennan's. We wanted to build a company and a business for ourselves and our families.

"It's the typical thing that happens in families with the third generation. They marry and they all have their own ideas. We had a lot of chiefs and we thought we ought to let the chiefs do their own thing."

When the dust settled, the assets were divided so that Owen's survivors took Brennan's on Royal Street and Brennan and her four siblings took Commander's Palace and the Brennan's outposts they had opened in Houston, Dallas, Atlanta and the Gulf Coast.

Ella's nephew Ralph Brennan, who stayed away from the family business for a time because of the division, is not optimistic about a rapprochement. But he has some faith that the next generation will move past it.

"It's something that has never gone away, " he says. "I've tried to reach out to my cousins, partially because we have children about the same age. But you always know it's there, it's always in the background.

"I'm hoping our children can get over it."

If the rift runs deep, so do the regrets, at least for some.

"I wish it would never have happened, " says Pip. "As I look back, I wish I had done something differently -- done everything in my power to not let it happen."